In a statement to Fortune, General Partner Mike Giampapa emphasized that the fund will focus on projects within the stablecoin and DeFi (decentralized finance) sectors, citing a “fundamental shift” from speculative use cases to tangible real-world applications of blockchain technology. Galaxy Digital has a track record of investing its own balance sheet into crypto startups, such as Fireblocks, but the collapse of FTX in 2022 catalyzed a strategic expansion into external capital raising.
The first close of the fund occurred in July last year at $113 million. According to Giampapa, institutional investors—including family offices and funds already working with Galaxy’s asset management arm—make up the primary backers of the venture fund. So far, roughly $50 million has been deployed into high-potential projects like Monad (a trading blockchain network) and Ethena (a crypto-backed stablecoin issuer).
While Galaxy Ventures Fund I operates as a standalone investment instrument, it is tightly integrated with Galaxy Digital’s broader ecosystem, leveraging the firm’s institutional client network to accelerate new product development and ecosystem growth. “Our core thesis since the inception of Galaxy is that traditional finance and crypto are on a collision course,” Giampapa commented.
Galaxy Digital continues to expand its footprint across asset management, crypto trading, mining, and ETFs. Notably, in 2024, it launched a bitcoin ETF in partnership with Invesco and is considering a Solana ETF launch. Despite reporting a Q1 2025 loss of $295 million, Galaxy Digital’s assets under management remain robust at approximately $7 billion.